by VK Freelance

Created on: July 13, 2009

Aggression in children

Most children at some point will exhibit aggression towards you, their parents, or towards their siblings and peers.

As isolated incidents, it is nothing serious to worry about, they are simply subconsciously experimenting with different ways of relieving frustration and tension, but when it becomes a regular occurrence, and your lives are spent trying to deal with such behaviour, it can be very worrying.

Is your child frustrated?

Frustration is very hard to deal with as an adult, but as a child it can be worse, they lack power to alter the circumstances surrounding their frustration and rely on adults to soothe them. It can feel very personal if the aggression is directed at you, but the child may not be unhappy with you, or with his/her family, try to get to the root of the problem. What started the most recent outburst? What was your child doing? Write it down; record all aggressive outbursts and what was happening immediately before.

Does your child understand what you or someone else wants?

A lot of anger is simply because someone doesn't understand. Before you tell your child not to draw on the wall with a crayon, think - does he/she understand what they should be doing instead? Imagine this, your child wants to draw, so they find some crayons and start to draw, they have nothing telling them that it's wrong to do it on a wall, after all they can draw on a chalkboard or on paper. When you tell them to stop they don't understand. So instead of saying "don't draw on the wall," say, "You are not allowed to draw on the wall, instead use this paper, or this chalk board." The child then understands what you want from them.

Attention seeking

Children like attention, any kind. Even if they get it because you are angry, if your child is simply attention seeking, don't offer them attention. Tell them its not nice to hit, warn them they may need to go on time out of they continue, if they continue, put them on time out. Show them no attention, just put them there for a set time and then when it's time up, bring them back. Time out is not punishment, but 'cool down.'

STOP! DON'T PUNISH them

If your child has bitten you, scratched you, pushed another child over, stolen something, snatched, pulled someone's hair - stop. How you react will set a precedent for them, if you respond with anger and violence, it simply teaches the child that its ok to respond with anger and violence, which is the opposite message. So, tell them that it

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